"He kissed her, he kissed her, he kissed her, little by little by little."
Gregory Maguire, Wicked. (Okay, I've obviously stopped even trying for RE
quotes. I'm a lazy ho. Deal with it. ^_^)
*
Hermione spent the rest of the night in her room, ignoring the many knocks and voices through her door. She hoped they'd all just think she was sleeping, or that spending that much time with Malfoy had traumatized her, and she needed recovery.
In truth, she did need to recover, but for altogether different reasons.
Grumpily, she pushed Crookshanks off her bed, lay down, and covered her eyes. Tomorrow, she'd have to get up early to serve her detention with Draco. Not that she'd have spent the time sleeping in, anyway, but really, she'd like the option to at least be open.
She was very much not looking forward to her detention. Besides the simple fact of having to spend more time with Draco and his lips, there was the matter of the detention itself. They had to clean Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Without using magic. Hermione thought that perhaps she'd been wrong in thinking Dumbledore was benign all these years.
There was another knock on her door. In response, Hermione covered her face with her pillow. Times like these made her very glad that the Head Girl got her own private room.
"'Mione?" came Ron's muffled voice.
She didn't answer.
"Hermione!" It was Harry this time. "We know you're not sleeping in there. Open up."
Hermione concentrated on making them leave using only the power of her mind.
"We're not going away until you talk to us." Obviously, it wasn't working.
Bugger all.
Hermione got off the bed and stalked to the door. Maybe if she pierced them with a nicely timed glare they'd leave her alone. She opened the door and fired.
Ron smiled.
Damn him. That was the problem with having friends who knew you well. They were never scared away by the looks that froze strangers and scared puppies.
"Fine, come in." Hermione opened the door wider, and swept her arm inwards in a mocking welcome.
Cheerfully ignoring her mood, Ron walking in and sat down on her bed, bouncing it a little. Harry came in more cautiously, and took a seat next to Ron. Hermione leaned against her dresser and stared down at them. "Well?" she asked.
"Well. Well, she says. Can you believe that, Harry?" Ron said.
"Um." Harry stammered, tactfully avoiding anything that would upset Hermione more than she already was.
"Well," Ron continued, "What the bloody hell happened to you this afternoon?"
"You already know. I'm sure the entire school knew the moment Draco and I got back. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I just spent the afternoon fighting zombies. I don't want to talk about it."
"Oh, come on, Hermione. Nothing this exciting's happened in a long while. The least you could do is share it with your friends." Ron had never learned when to stop.
Hermione glared.
Crookshanks, eager to side with his mistress against the two boys, leaped onto the dresser and began batting at Hermione's hair. Distracted, she swept the mass into a ponytail, held up by her fist.
Ron gasped. "What," he said with emphasis, "Is that?"
"It's, um," Hermione stammered, trying to think of something remotely believable. "A zombie tried to bite me." There, that sounded good.
"Actually, I think it looks more like a hickey." That was Harry, who'd been so good until now. Damn the traitor.
"Well, it's not. Would you two please get out of my room now? I'm sure you've heard that Dumbledore assigned a detention that I've got to complete tomorrow morning." She walked over to the bed and grabbed a hand from each of them, tugging.
With much protesting, they left her room.
She sank down into the bed again. It was going to be a long night, and an even longer morning.
*
When Hermione woke the next morning, she was surprised to find that she'd forgotten to change into her pajamas. She'd spent the night in her (now considerably tattered) blouse. When she moved, all the muscles in her body seemed to protest at once. Things were certainly starting out the way she'd expect them to on a day such as today.
She managed to make her body move in the correct way to change clothes, freshen up, and get downstairs for breakfast. She ate her meal silently, ignoring Harry and Ron and purposely not looking over at the Slytherin table, where she could feel several sets of eyes boring holes into her back.
Ginny, who was sitting to Hermione's right, did a good job of keeping her brother at bay. However, she kept whispering in Hermione ear that Draco was looking in their direction. From the way she said it, Hermione knew Ginny suspected something was up.
Hell, the entire Gryffindor house suspected something was up.
The whispering was so annoying that Hermione was almost glad when breakfast was over, and she could start her detention. She stomped off to the head table to wait for Dumbledore, not caring that she left a trail of gossip in her wake.
Draco was waiting, too. "Hi," he said.
"Humph," said Hermione. She'd be damned before she talked to him with the whole school watching.
"Sorry, didn't mean to smear your perfect Gryffindor image."
"Shut up, Malfoy." Hermione explicitly did not look at him, though her hand wandered carelessly to her neck. She was quite glad she'd thought to cover the mark with a charm this morning.
"Testy, testy. I hope you're not going to be this way the whole morning. I'd almost rather face zombies." She glared at him, and he added, "I said almost." Then he winked.
Hermione blushed, and willed Dumbledore to finish his damn tea already.
For once, her telepathic powers seemed to work, for the Headmaster appeared in front of them. "Ms. Granger. Mr. Malfoy. I trust you're both ready for a morning of hard work?"
Hermione and Draco both nodded.
"Good, then. Follow me, if you will."
They started walking. When they reached Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Dumbledore stopped. "Here we are." With the wave of a wand, he produced two buckets of water, a mop, and a rag. "You have until noon to scrub the place down. I'm putting a ward on the bathroom that ensures no one else will enter. It will also," he added, "Let me know if the two of you are engaging in the any petty arguments like the one that got you here in the first place." He gave them a stern look.
"Thank you, Headmaster," said Hermione. "We'll be fine, thanks."
Then he was gone, and she was alone with Draco, again. Hermione couldn't help but think that Dumbledore had chosen this detention for that exact purpose. The meddling old goat.
A quick scan of the bathroom told Hermione that Myrtle either wasn't there, or wasn't making her presence known. At least they had that working in their favor. She dragged the mop and one bucket into the room. "Coming?" she called back to Draco.
"If you'd give me a chance, yes."
She tried not to interpret that statement as having more than any surface meaning.
"I'll mop. You can scrub the walls. Then we'll switch, and I'll take the toilets."
"That's generous of you, Granger." Draco picked up the cloth, and began scrubbing.
"I know," Hermione said.
They worked in silence for a bit. Then Hermione found her mouth moving, and words coming out of it. Why she'd chosen to speak, she wasn't quite sure, but speaking she was, nonetheless.
"Draco?"
"Hmm?"
"Why were you. why did you kiss me?"
"Because I wanted to." Was the blunt reply.
"Well, yes. But why?" She'd stopped mopping now, and was watching him, as he scrubbing rough circles on the stone wall. At her words, he stopped, and dropped the cloth into his bucket.
"Granger, do you have to be such a girl about this?"
"Yes," she said, "Quite frankly I do. I am a girl, which you've noticed, I'm sure." She let the mop drop to the floor.
Draco sighed heavily. "There isn't any deep answer, if that's what you're looking for. It's just. you're pretty," she blushed at that, "and when you're not talking as if you've got all the answers to everything that could possibly be, you're actually fun."
"Oh," Hermione said. She dipped the mop back in the water, and started to mop again.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Why did you kiss me?"
"Oh Draco," she said, mockingly, "Do you have to be such a girl about this?"
"That's not funny," he said, though Hermione was giggling too hard to hear him. He walked over to her and fixed her with a mean stare. "I answered you."
"Fine," Hermione said when she'd stopped laughing. "I kissed you because I liked doing it. And you're not so bad yourself, when you're not putting down everything in the whole world."
"So," said Draco, moving closer to Hermione.
"So?" she challenged.
"So what now?"
Instead of answering, she kissed him on the cheek. In response, he kissed her, lightly, on the lips.
Suddenly, it wasn't a light kiss anymore, but a deep one, tongues entwined, hands roaming over bodies, and Hermione found herself pressed against the wall. Sighing, she gave herself over to the sway of Draco's body, and twined her hands in his hair, pressing his face more firmly into the kiss.
This wasn't such a bad detention after all, she thought, as she snaked an ankle around Draco's calf.
Then, they were rudely interrupted by ghostly laughter, and a high-pitched voice saying, "I'm going to tell Professor Dumbledore!"
Before they could break apart to stop her, Myrtle had fled the room. Hermione rolled her eyes in disgust.
"Do you think we'll get another detention?" Draco asked.
"Probably not," answered Hermione. "He didn't tell us we couldn't kiss. Just that we couldn't argue. Besides, another detention wouldn't be that bad." She grinned.
"Granger," said Draco, "I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
THE END
*
Hermione spent the rest of the night in her room, ignoring the many knocks and voices through her door. She hoped they'd all just think she was sleeping, or that spending that much time with Malfoy had traumatized her, and she needed recovery.
In truth, she did need to recover, but for altogether different reasons.
Grumpily, she pushed Crookshanks off her bed, lay down, and covered her eyes. Tomorrow, she'd have to get up early to serve her detention with Draco. Not that she'd have spent the time sleeping in, anyway, but really, she'd like the option to at least be open.
She was very much not looking forward to her detention. Besides the simple fact of having to spend more time with Draco and his lips, there was the matter of the detention itself. They had to clean Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Without using magic. Hermione thought that perhaps she'd been wrong in thinking Dumbledore was benign all these years.
There was another knock on her door. In response, Hermione covered her face with her pillow. Times like these made her very glad that the Head Girl got her own private room.
"'Mione?" came Ron's muffled voice.
She didn't answer.
"Hermione!" It was Harry this time. "We know you're not sleeping in there. Open up."
Hermione concentrated on making them leave using only the power of her mind.
"We're not going away until you talk to us." Obviously, it wasn't working.
Bugger all.
Hermione got off the bed and stalked to the door. Maybe if she pierced them with a nicely timed glare they'd leave her alone. She opened the door and fired.
Ron smiled.
Damn him. That was the problem with having friends who knew you well. They were never scared away by the looks that froze strangers and scared puppies.
"Fine, come in." Hermione opened the door wider, and swept her arm inwards in a mocking welcome.
Cheerfully ignoring her mood, Ron walking in and sat down on her bed, bouncing it a little. Harry came in more cautiously, and took a seat next to Ron. Hermione leaned against her dresser and stared down at them. "Well?" she asked.
"Well. Well, she says. Can you believe that, Harry?" Ron said.
"Um." Harry stammered, tactfully avoiding anything that would upset Hermione more than she already was.
"Well," Ron continued, "What the bloody hell happened to you this afternoon?"
"You already know. I'm sure the entire school knew the moment Draco and I got back. I'm tired, I'm cranky, and I just spent the afternoon fighting zombies. I don't want to talk about it."
"Oh, come on, Hermione. Nothing this exciting's happened in a long while. The least you could do is share it with your friends." Ron had never learned when to stop.
Hermione glared.
Crookshanks, eager to side with his mistress against the two boys, leaped onto the dresser and began batting at Hermione's hair. Distracted, she swept the mass into a ponytail, held up by her fist.
Ron gasped. "What," he said with emphasis, "Is that?"
"It's, um," Hermione stammered, trying to think of something remotely believable. "A zombie tried to bite me." There, that sounded good.
"Actually, I think it looks more like a hickey." That was Harry, who'd been so good until now. Damn the traitor.
"Well, it's not. Would you two please get out of my room now? I'm sure you've heard that Dumbledore assigned a detention that I've got to complete tomorrow morning." She walked over to the bed and grabbed a hand from each of them, tugging.
With much protesting, they left her room.
She sank down into the bed again. It was going to be a long night, and an even longer morning.
*
When Hermione woke the next morning, she was surprised to find that she'd forgotten to change into her pajamas. She'd spent the night in her (now considerably tattered) blouse. When she moved, all the muscles in her body seemed to protest at once. Things were certainly starting out the way she'd expect them to on a day such as today.
She managed to make her body move in the correct way to change clothes, freshen up, and get downstairs for breakfast. She ate her meal silently, ignoring Harry and Ron and purposely not looking over at the Slytherin table, where she could feel several sets of eyes boring holes into her back.
Ginny, who was sitting to Hermione's right, did a good job of keeping her brother at bay. However, she kept whispering in Hermione ear that Draco was looking in their direction. From the way she said it, Hermione knew Ginny suspected something was up.
Hell, the entire Gryffindor house suspected something was up.
The whispering was so annoying that Hermione was almost glad when breakfast was over, and she could start her detention. She stomped off to the head table to wait for Dumbledore, not caring that she left a trail of gossip in her wake.
Draco was waiting, too. "Hi," he said.
"Humph," said Hermione. She'd be damned before she talked to him with the whole school watching.
"Sorry, didn't mean to smear your perfect Gryffindor image."
"Shut up, Malfoy." Hermione explicitly did not look at him, though her hand wandered carelessly to her neck. She was quite glad she'd thought to cover the mark with a charm this morning.
"Testy, testy. I hope you're not going to be this way the whole morning. I'd almost rather face zombies." She glared at him, and he added, "I said almost." Then he winked.
Hermione blushed, and willed Dumbledore to finish his damn tea already.
For once, her telepathic powers seemed to work, for the Headmaster appeared in front of them. "Ms. Granger. Mr. Malfoy. I trust you're both ready for a morning of hard work?"
Hermione and Draco both nodded.
"Good, then. Follow me, if you will."
They started walking. When they reached Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, Dumbledore stopped. "Here we are." With the wave of a wand, he produced two buckets of water, a mop, and a rag. "You have until noon to scrub the place down. I'm putting a ward on the bathroom that ensures no one else will enter. It will also," he added, "Let me know if the two of you are engaging in the any petty arguments like the one that got you here in the first place." He gave them a stern look.
"Thank you, Headmaster," said Hermione. "We'll be fine, thanks."
Then he was gone, and she was alone with Draco, again. Hermione couldn't help but think that Dumbledore had chosen this detention for that exact purpose. The meddling old goat.
A quick scan of the bathroom told Hermione that Myrtle either wasn't there, or wasn't making her presence known. At least they had that working in their favor. She dragged the mop and one bucket into the room. "Coming?" she called back to Draco.
"If you'd give me a chance, yes."
She tried not to interpret that statement as having more than any surface meaning.
"I'll mop. You can scrub the walls. Then we'll switch, and I'll take the toilets."
"That's generous of you, Granger." Draco picked up the cloth, and began scrubbing.
"I know," Hermione said.
They worked in silence for a bit. Then Hermione found her mouth moving, and words coming out of it. Why she'd chosen to speak, she wasn't quite sure, but speaking she was, nonetheless.
"Draco?"
"Hmm?"
"Why were you. why did you kiss me?"
"Because I wanted to." Was the blunt reply.
"Well, yes. But why?" She'd stopped mopping now, and was watching him, as he scrubbing rough circles on the stone wall. At her words, he stopped, and dropped the cloth into his bucket.
"Granger, do you have to be such a girl about this?"
"Yes," she said, "Quite frankly I do. I am a girl, which you've noticed, I'm sure." She let the mop drop to the floor.
Draco sighed heavily. "There isn't any deep answer, if that's what you're looking for. It's just. you're pretty," she blushed at that, "and when you're not talking as if you've got all the answers to everything that could possibly be, you're actually fun."
"Oh," Hermione said. She dipped the mop back in the water, and started to mop again.
"Hermione?"
"Yes?"
"Why did you kiss me?"
"Oh Draco," she said, mockingly, "Do you have to be such a girl about this?"
"That's not funny," he said, though Hermione was giggling too hard to hear him. He walked over to her and fixed her with a mean stare. "I answered you."
"Fine," Hermione said when she'd stopped laughing. "I kissed you because I liked doing it. And you're not so bad yourself, when you're not putting down everything in the whole world."
"So," said Draco, moving closer to Hermione.
"So?" she challenged.
"So what now?"
Instead of answering, she kissed him on the cheek. In response, he kissed her, lightly, on the lips.
Suddenly, it wasn't a light kiss anymore, but a deep one, tongues entwined, hands roaming over bodies, and Hermione found herself pressed against the wall. Sighing, she gave herself over to the sway of Draco's body, and twined her hands in his hair, pressing his face more firmly into the kiss.
This wasn't such a bad detention after all, she thought, as she snaked an ankle around Draco's calf.
Then, they were rudely interrupted by ghostly laughter, and a high-pitched voice saying, "I'm going to tell Professor Dumbledore!"
Before they could break apart to stop her, Myrtle had fled the room. Hermione rolled her eyes in disgust.
"Do you think we'll get another detention?" Draco asked.
"Probably not," answered Hermione. "He didn't tell us we couldn't kiss. Just that we couldn't argue. Besides, another detention wouldn't be that bad." She grinned.
"Granger," said Draco, "I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
THE END
